


(should've been) my time

by what_is_a_social_life



Category: Aida - John/Rice/Woolverton & Falls & Hwang
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Infidelity, Missing Scene, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-18 13:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15486915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/what_is_a_social_life/pseuds/what_is_a_social_life
Summary: Musings on moments from the show.





	1. a life of great potential (dismissed, inconsequential)

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: My only affiliation to Aida is having been in the school edition recently. (Hence the fic)

_ And soon I will be completely alone, because everyone I love will be gone. _

~~

Amneris had an older brother and two younger sisters. Her brother died in battle, one she almost lost Radames to. One of her sisters never survived.

And the second died with the sickness that took Radames’ mother, as well as her own.

She was thirteen when her mother was taken from her. Her mother, who never approved of her late night escapades with Radames to the riverbanks, to the training pits. It didn’t matter that they were betrothed, and had been for the past four years-- it was improper for the future pharaoh to be seen romping around in such a fashion. It broke something in her, in her father.

Radames left on an expedition not long after, and he returned to an Amneris who hid behind beautiful gowns and spent hours upon hours in the spas with the daughters of the captains and ministers who groveled at her father’s feet.


	2. given paradise (but only for a day)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “'Two guards came to the Nubian camp. They took-' He stops, as if the words are hard to get out, and looking him dead in the eye he says, 'They took Aida,' and the steel in his voice is proof enough that he knows exactly why two guards came for her.  
> And Radames feels his heart shatter."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: I do not own Aida in any way, shape, or form.

_Aida! I thought you were-_

~~

Mereb comes to his chambers that evening with a haunted look in his eyes. He can’t think of anything that could cause it, so he asks.

“Two guards came to the Nubian camp. They took-” He stops, as if the words are hard to get out, and looking him dead in the eye he says, “They took Aida,” and the steel in his voice is proof enough that he knows exactly why two guards came for her.

And Radames feels his heart shatter.

“Excuse me,” he says, feeling tears start to burn his throat. He hears Mereb calling after him, telling him to stop, but he continues to the garden his mother grew beside the Nile, trying to remember Aida’s smile as they were together that morning, her quiet whispered, ‘I love you,’ words he will carry to his grave as he weds Amneris tomorrow.

_ Tomorrow. _ His father knows him well. He had spent the afternoon with Amneris as requested, and let her talk about the wedding. Despite what he’d told his father, he knew he would need to talk to the pharaoh before he could say anything to anyone else, and the man had been in bed all day, too sick to do anything other than cough and rest in preparation for the wedding. And it wasn’t a horrible way to spend an afternoon. Amneris did read about the campaign at Kadesh, asked him questions about that and other expeditions, about what really happened when they got there, and he’d told her. She asked for every  detail, gory though it may be, and he gave it, and he saw the Amneris she’d been before her mother died, before his first expedition along the Nile. Maybe there’s enough of that girl still there, enough to build a marriage off of. Amneris will take to being a wife and mother, though he still isn’t sure if she will be the strong leader Egypt needs. He knows that the pharaoh will be leaving this world sooner rather than later, and that he will be expected to step up, and the thought chafes him.

If Aida were to be at his side, perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible. Aida, with her love for her people, her courage, her  _ goodness _ , would be that strong leader. She deserved to return to Nubia and lead her country, not to be killed for something which  _ he _ had started.

He loves her so much.

_ Loved _ , now, he supposes _. _ It’s amazing what can happen in such a short amount of time.

He’s sure Amneris will learn of this and be heartbroken; he knew how attached the two of them had become. Would she wonder what could get her slave killed? Would she put the pieces together? Would she hate him forever? He doesn’t think there’s a hating bone in her body, truly, and he loves her for that.

Just as he reaches the gardens he’d told Aida about that very morning, just as he prepares to finally break down away from prying ears and eyes (The spies are good, and probably still around, waiting to see his reaction, to report to his father the wedding is on), he sees a figure in the distance, a figure he’d know anywhere, and his heart thunders as she runs towards him.

 


	3. listen good and listen straight (you're not the master of your fate)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Radames was ten when he discovered the first of his father’s diversions."

_ Radames, you can have your little diversions; just wait until  _ after _ you’ve wed. _

**_Like you did._ **

~~

Radames was ten when he discovered the first of his father’s diversions.

Amneris had been dragged away to some princess lesson he wasn’t allowed to attend, so the pharaoh had sent him to his father’s temple. When he arrived, he saw his father and one of the queen’s handmaidens kissing, her laying on the altar. She noticed him first and pushed his father away, and Zoser had run after him, explaining he wasn’t to tell his mother a thing, that it was perfectly natural.

He caught his father twice more before his mother died, and knows that he continues to have such… diversions to this day.

He knows they mean as much to him as his mother did, that his father has never cared about something so frivolous as love. He wonders how his father can justify everything he’s done as out of love for his son and Egypt. He’s not sure he knows what it feels like, and the thought almost saddens him.

He won’t be like him. He can’t be. He’s going to be a better man than he’s ever been, because that’s what Aida and Amneris both deserve. He’s going to do what his father never could, and be a good husband and father and  _ love _ .

He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did anything else.


	4. the body blow (egyptians in the courtyard, my family in chains)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Nubia will never die!” Henu shouted, and the gasp he made as he died echoed through the yard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Characters are killed off, but not really explicit

_You witnessed our abduction, which probably explains how I know you._

~~

The shouts echo loudly through the palace, and his mother pushes him into the corner of their room and stands directly in front of him, reaching for the dagger resting on the table nearby.

“Mama?”

“Silence, Mereb,” she replies, and even though he’s ten now and too old to be cowering behind his mother, he can’t fight against the edge in her voice.

It doesn’t matter, not really, because within minutes, Egyptian soldiers come storming in. His mother tries, but she’s quickly disarmed and chained. She screams for him, but he can’t reach the dagger before he’s scooped up as well and deposited outside in the courtyard. He glances around and sees his father and older brother across the way, surrounded by several other of the king’s advisors.

The royal family, however, is nowhere to be seen. He breathes a sigh of relief. They haven’t returned from their expedition yet.

“Where is your king?” a tall man says, looking through the yard.

“On campaign,” Amadi, the steward, calls. “Our king is not a coward, who hides away from fights! If only he had met you on the field of battle!” The tall Egyptian inclined his head, and another Egyptian slit Amadi’s throat.

Those who remained watch as the king’s advisors are brought forward and killed. His mother makes him turn away when his father is called.

“Nubia will never die!” Henu shouts, and the gasp he makes as he dies echoes through the yard. He bites his lip, feeling tears spring to his eyes.

Once all the advisors and those who had spoken out of turn are executed, they are all lined up and slowly marched towards the Nile. Mereb glances towards the place that had been his home one last time, where he can see figures in the distance. They move ever closer, and Mereb can make out Aida’s hardened face, her mother’s arms wrapped tightly around her as her father is held back by his guards. They lock eyes, and Aida starts to strain harder, so her mother moves around so as to be blocking her. The guards quickly herd the family away, but Aida glances back at him again and mouthes two simple words: _I’m sorry_.


End file.
